Posted by Mary Grabar @ Selous Foundation| October 27, 2015
On October 20
President Obama, through the Department of Education, took another heavy-booted
step in unlawfully transforming America by announcing the release of a 63-page
“resource guide” to help educators, school leaders and community organizations
better support “undocumented youth,” including Deferred Action for Childhood
Arrivals (DACA) recipients. The “deferred action” does not create legal status,
but DACA, which granted exemption from deportation to those who had entered the
country illegally before age 16 was issued by Obama in 2012 and then in 2014
was expanded
to extend, among other things, eligibility to age 31.
The announcement
stated that the guide includes information for high school and college
educators about “the rights of undocumented students”; tips on supporting
“undocumented youth”; a list of private scholarships; “guidance for migrant
students in accessing their education records for DACA”; and “information on
federally-funded adult education programs and on non-citizen access to federal
financial aid.” An increasing number of documents coming in departmental
mailings are in Spanish, as
are the accompanying “Superintendent Dear Colleague Letter” and the “Higher Ed
Dear Colleague Letter.” There is little question about which “undocumented
students” are being targeted.
The guide was
presented as an “effort to ensure that all students have access to a
world-class education that prepares them for college and careers.” What it
promises in reality is to create more new Democratic voters, stretch resources,
and further degrade education. And it will surely add to the level of
disapproval of Obama’s immigration policies, which was at 60
percent last summer.
But most teachers,
professors, and administrators are out-of-step with the American public and
in-step with Obama’s policies. They welcome the suggestions.
Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, and former
provost at King’s College and former associate provost at Boston University,
says, “The resource guide will help [administrators] figure out the best ways
to divert state and university resources to the cause.” The federal government
is following California, which especially has been on the forefront of the
effort to treat illegal aliens as a privileged and desirable group of potential
college enrollees.
Wood’s observations
are on target. At the 2009 annual meeting of the National
Council for the Social Studies, teachers shared tips on indoctrinating
young students about illegal aliens. In Georgia, administration-supported
teach-ins were held on various campuses, including one in 2010, at Kennesaw
State University (along with a number
of more official-sounding ones). In 2012, the College of Education at Georgia
State University held a “Teach-In
on Tucson,” to protest Arizona legislation (HB 2281) prohibiting the use of
Raza
Studies curricular materials that “promote the overthrow of the U.S. government”
or “promote resentment toward a race or a class of people.” At the “teach-in,”
Dean Randy Kamphaus made opening remarks, and workshops offered tips for
incorporating curriculum materials from the Zinn Education Project about
Christopher Columbus’s “genocide.” Associate Professor Jennifer Esposito pledged to
give “extra points” to students for letters to legislators asking them to vote
against enforcement of immigration laws.
After attending
this teach-in, I testified
before the Judiciary Non-Civil Committee. President of the Georgia
pro-enforcement group, the Dustin Inman Society, D.A. King, had warned me about
the teachers and students that routinely pack hearing rooms. One of these
professors had to be reprimanded by the chairman when she shouted out, accusing
me of lying. In
reply to inquiries from the committee, Dean Kamphaus stated that although
Esposito had “pledged” to give the assignment, she had not in fact done so and
that a memo reminding faculty of university policy had been sent out.
In 2013, the Association
of Teacher Educators conference featured Bill Ayers as keynote speaker and
a panel called “Immigration and Education: Critical Issues, Critical Times”
with the director of a “Freedom University,” the president of the Lawyers
Guild, and two public high school teachers sharing tips on helping illegals.
For years,
educators have been conspiring on ways to subvert federal immigration law. Now
the Obama Department of Education is helping them.
The pro-illegal
lobby has also been getting help from Republican lawmakers. In Georgia, a state
with a larger population of illegal aliens than Arizona, the majority of
citizens have been opposed to supporting illegal students. Yet, the
Republican-controlled state government, which, according to King, is “run by
the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the 21st-century slavers in the Ag
industry,” voted to continue to give drivers licenses to illegal aliens.
“Increased special
treatment in schools is only part of the story,” he says.
The latest
Education Department guidelines, says Wood, will provide “ideological
encouragement and talking points to answer citizens and legislators who
criticize the use of public and private resources to subvert the nation’s laws
on immigration.”
But the radical
pro-amnesty group La Raza is “in the White House–and making policy,” says King.
Cecilia Munoz, Assistant to
the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council, lists her prior
service as “Senior Vice President for the Office of Research, Advocacy, and
Legislation at the National Council of La Raza …” on her White House bio. Ten
years ago jokes were being made about putting La Raza in charge of enforcement.
The joke has
become tragic fact. Even after Kate
Steinle died at the hands of an illegal alien residing in the sanctuary
city of San Francisco U.S. Senate Democrats killed
a bill that would punish already illegal sanctuary cities.
Obama’s directive
to schools is part of a bigger plan: to mainstream illegal aliens and “set up
an incremental action so that illegals are actually a special, protected
class,” says King. Illegal immigration will become a civil right, he predicts.
When breaking the
law gets you special privileges, then you know that America is indeed being
transformed.
Mary Grabar, Ph.D., teaches English at Emory University in the Program
in American Democracy and Citizenship. She recently founded the Dissident
Prof Education Project, Inc., an education reform initiative that offers
information and resources for students, parents, and citizens. The motto,
“Resisting the Re-Education of America,” arose in part from her perspective as
a very young immigrant from the former Communist Yugoslavia (Slovenia
specifically). She writes extensively and is also a published poet and fiction
writer.
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